Cat Garcia shoots James Waterworth for MR PORTER, The Journal.
Soho Home. MR PORTER launches the new homeware brand, we meet the Soho House interiors guru behind the line.
Words by Mr Chris Elvidge
Associate Editor, MR PORTER
Photography by Ms Cat Garcia
Styling by Ms Sophie Hardcastle
Executive Fashion Editor, MR PORTER
If you count yourself among the 21st century’s emergent “creative class” – by which we mean you own a Macbook, have “digital” in your job title and don’t feel obliged to wear a tie to work – then you’ll no doubt be familiar with Soho House. Established in 1995 by Mr Nick Jones as the antidote to stuffy, old-fashioned members’ clubs, it was marketed as a “home from home” for London’s creative types. Since then, it has grown into a global network with no fewer than 17 outposts spanning Europe and North America.
Lately, it has seemed like they just can’t open new houses fast enough. There are at least another five in the pipeline, the first of which, Soho House Barcelona, opens its doors later this month. That will shortly be followed by houses in Mumbai and Amsterdam, as well as further locations in London and in New York. They join a portfolio of properties that already includes a Malibu beach house, a former east London tea warehouse, an old American consulate in Istanbul and a 100-acre country retreat in Oxfordshire complete with stables and a boating lake.
Central to the appeal – and wild success – of the Soho House brand is its unique ambience, which varies only slightly from house to house. If you’ve ever sipped a Soho Mule from a copper mug while sinking into a plush-yet-shabby Chesterfield sofa – something you can do in downtown Chicago or leafy Chiswick – you’ll have experienced this ambience first-hand. It’s cosy, charmingly retro, welcoming and unpretentious. It’s homely, in other words, and as such it entirely succeeds in fulfilling Mr Jones’s mission statement of creating a home from home. So now they’re monetising that feeling with their homeware range, Soho Home.
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